Letters on C¿zanne
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Letters on C¿zanne
by Authors:
Rainer Maria Rilke , David Rainer Rilke , Clara Rilke , Joel Agee
Released: 15 September, 2002
ISBN: 086547639X
Paperback
Sales Rank: 52,000
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Average Customer Rating: 
Letters on C¿zanne >
Customer Review #1:
 a song of seeing
This is an extraordinary book, one that can be read again and again just as a painting can be looked at again and again. It seems to me that most literary works on painters miss by miles, and rarely help the viewer see what the painting has to communicate. Theyre always about things that can be expressed in words-- ideas. Theyre not about looking, not about seeing, but interpreting in literary terms, too often ignoring the qualities unique to visual images. Rilke on the contrary looked hard at Cezanne, and reflects sensitively and thoughtfully on what he saw. Somehow, and the process is remarkable, his reflections enable one to see the painters work as clearly as Cezanne hoped his viewers would.
Cezanne struggled to build images of what he alone saw, putting his vision into paint--whether he looked at a mountain, a skull, an apple or a glade dappled with sun, shade and swimmers. The result is moving in a way that eludes literary analysis. This most original or artists has enhanced the spiritual vision of all whove come after him. The world he shows us becomes a different place for painters and everyone with open eyes. Rilke pays Cezanne the greatest homage he can by simply looking. A treasure of a book!
Letters on C¿zanne >
Customer Review #2:
Letters about the spirituality of art
The encounter with the work of Cezanne was one of the milestones in the life of the poet Rilke. The letters which are collected here show why. Rilke, like Cezanne, was a man who was religious in an unconventional way. He was not interested in any particular concept of God, but in the process of discerning the divine in the sheer existence of things as they are: "All talk is misunderstanding. Insight is just in work." What he admired most in Cezannes work was his "devout objectivity", the ability to let objects speak for themselves without the intellectual interference by the artist and without preconceived notions. Rilke felt that when Cezanne painted the mountain Sainte Victoire, for example, he wanted to show the essence of the mountain, the mountain pure and simple, nothing more, nothing less.The German edition of the Letters on Cezanne contains an excellent afterword which quotes the philosopher Martin Heidegger who wrote, "we come too late for the Gods, and too early for being," meaning we do not live in the safety of believing in the Gods any more, and we do not trust in simply being yet. Rilke was acutely aware of this state of suspension, and the collection of his letters on Cezanne gives us an idea of how Rilke as an artist intended to make sense of this life in suspension.
Letters on C¿zanne >
Customer Review #3:
 Painting thru the eyes of a poet
This book gives one a glimpse of a painters genius as seen through the eyes of a poet. Rilke possesses the poetic sensitivity to shed some light on Cezannes paintings. This along with Delacroixs Journal and Van Goghs Letters to Theo really afford one a literary appreciation of the great European artists.
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Letters on C¿zanne >
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